1. Technical Field
The invention relates to the interactive organization and presentation of content within a semi-supervised expert domain. More particularly, the invention relates to the consistent presentation of content and passive relevance determination of content relationship in an on-line commerce system.
2. Description of the Background Art
Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce, or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online. It also includes the entire online process of developing, marketing, selling, delivering, servicing, and paying for products and services.
The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with widespread Internet usage. The use of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at one point in the transaction's life-cycle, although it may encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail, mobile devices, and telephones as well.
A large percentage of electronic commerce is conducted entirely in electronic form for virtual items, such as access to premium content on a website, but mostly electronic commerce involves the transportation of physical items in some way. Online retailers are sometimes known as e-tailers and online retail is sometimes known as e-tail. Almost all big retailers are now electronically present on the World Wide Web.
Electronic commerce that takes place between businesses is referred to as business-to-business or B2B. B2B can be open to all interested parties, e.g. commodity exchange, or limited to specific, pre-qualified participants (private electronic market). Electronic commerce that takes place between businesses and consumers, on the other hand, is referred to as business-to-consumer or B2C. This is the type of electronic commerce conducted by companies such as Amazon.com. Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce where the buyer is directly online to the seller's computer, usually via the Internet. There is no intermediary service involved. The sale or purchase transaction is completed electronically and interactively in real-time, such as in Amazon.com for new books. However in some cases, an intermediary may be present in a sale or purchase transaction such as the transactions on eBay.com.
Online shopping has evolved to the point that a specific user experience is often provided for particular types of goods. Online shopping also includes recommendations, user reviews, and other social aspects of the goods listed on a particular site. Unfortunately, there is no way for a user to make much sense of the listed items because no thought goes into arranging and presenting the items in a meaningful way relative to each other across categories, nor is expert advice associated with the online sale of goods, nor is user interaction with the goods during their presentation considered in subsequent presentation of the goods. Further, most online commerce is presented in a format that belongs to an earlier era of the Internet, and that is not particularly well adapted for modern tablet and handheld devices.